University of Pittsburgh: Department of History

Working Class History

The Working Class History Seminar

The Working-Class History Seminar is a long-established, interdisciplinary meeting of scholars and activists who are interested in the history of working people broadly conceived. Papers presented have in recent years spanned the whole of early modern and modern history, from roughly 1600 to the present, and have covered a wide array of topics, including the history of slavery; questions of race, class, and gender; the work of the English Marxist historians (E.P. Thompson, Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm); the international history of communism; and issues of theory in the writing of working-class history. The Seminar is committed to the international study of workers, and has featured papers on European, Russian, West African, and Latin American topics and themes, though perhaps a majority of presentations have concerned the United States.

The Seminar draws its speakers and its members primarily from the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Duquesne University, and Carlow College. Scholars from other parts of the United States and the world are regularly invited to speak. The seminar meets roughly once a month during the academic year. Attendance varies from twenty or twenty-five up to two hundred or more for the annual E.P. Thompson Memorial Lecture. Papers are routinely circulated in advance of the discussion.


Working Class History The Working Class History Seminar The Working-Class History Seminar is a long-established, interdisciplinary meeting of scholars and activists who are interested in the history of working people broadly conceived. Papers presented have in recent years spanned the whole of early modern and modern history, from roughly 1600 to the present, and have covered a wide array of topics, including the history of slavery; questions of race, class, and gender; the work of the English Marxist historians (E.P. Thompson, Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm); the international history of communism; and issues of theory in the writing of working-class history. The Seminar is committed to the international study of workers, and has featured papers on European, Russian, West African, and Latin American topics and themes, though perhaps a majority of presentations have concerned the United States. The Seminar draws its speakers and its members primarily from the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, Duquesne University, and Carlow College. Scholars from other parts of the United States and the world are regularly invited to speak. The seminar meets roughly once a month during the academic year. Attendance varies from twenty or twenty-five up to two hundred or more for the annual E.P. Thompson Memorial Lecture. Papers are routinely circulated in advance of the discussion.